Yusra Ghannouchi is the daughter of Rached Ghannouchi, the co-founder and leader of Ennahda, Tunisia’s largest political party.
On June 2, the Tunis Court of First Instance sentenced my father, Tunisian opposition leader Rached Ghannouchi, to life imprisonment on false charges in a politically driven case meant to crush political opposition in Tunisia. It adds to the six existing prison sentences, totaling over 70 years, that the Tunisian regime has issued against him in politically motivated cases and unfair trials since the police arbitrarily detained him in April 2023. At 85 years old, these sentences are effectively a death sentence.
I have tried to persuade myself that this latest sentence has changed nothing. Nevertheless, these events have reawakened old fears and memories, transporting me back to my childhood when my father was first sentenced to life imprisonment in September 1987. A few months later, he was freed due to a fortuitous change in regime. The country breathed a sigh of relief as these new leaders, including now-deposed dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, promised a "democratic opening," creating renewed hope for change. Alas, the 1989 election results triggered the regime's return to repression under Ben Ali, bringing a new wave of arrests, trials, torture and violations that sent my father into exile for 22 years.
The pain of watching history repeat itself weighs heavily on my heart. It drove home the dreadful realization that, after achieving over a decade of democratic transition, even with its ups and downs, Tunisia and Tunisians have again fallen back to square one.
Having failed to achieve any of his promises of transforming Tunisia into a paradise of prosperity, dismantling democratic checks and balances, Saied finds himself struggling to identify suitable scapegoats.
- Yusra Ghannouchi
The old labels of "political trials" and "political prisoners" have returned, just as Tunisians had hoped that they had been relegated to the waste basket of history. However, this time around, the sheer blatancy of injustices is arguably worse. Under Ben Ali, the regime was often careful to craft fabricated cases against the political opposition, planting evidence of alleged crimes.
Under President Kais Saied, however, the regime has dispensed with the pretense of evidence. Instead, courts have been instructed to issue heavy sentences against dozens of politicians, journalists, activists and judges for "conspiring against state security," without even a shred of evidence. Claims by so-called anonymous witnesses whom defendants and lawyers are not allowed to challenge or confront, today constitute a new legal "standard."
Political trials go beyond political opposition, impacting ordinary citizens from all walks of life. Tunisians experienced widespread disbelief and shock at the death sentence issued against Saber Chouchane, for example, for a social media post deemed to have caused "offense" to the president earlier this year. The arrest of a young student with autism last month for a rap song he posted online eight years ago provoked similar astonishment, especially considering he shared the song when he was just fourteen years old.
Having failed to achieve any of his promises of transforming Tunisia into a paradise of prosperity, dismantling democratic checks and balances, Saied finds himself struggling to identify suitable scapegoats. Now that he has imprisoned his key opponents, silenced even modest critics and weakened civil society, he has turned his ire on new enemies: "conspirators," foreign agents and migrants, who he blames for obstructing his achievements.
Just as the cycle of repression repeats itself in Tunisia, Western leaders demonstrate their refusal to learn from history, repeating the same failed approaches while clinging to the myth of stability through dictatorship.
- Yusra Ghannouchi
Saied rejects all responsibility for his oversight of an abysmal economic situation that has seen rising prices, unemployment, inflation and shortages of basic goods and critical medicines. Instead, in typical populist fashion, he has sought to re-direct public anger and frustration by fomenting hatred and division in society. He has branded his critics as corrupt traitors, vermin and "cancer cells" to be exterminated, even accusing sub-Saharan African migrants of plotting to "alter Tunisia's demographic composition."
Saied's hate-filled rhetoric has given free rein to racist stereotypes and fear, inciting hatred, violence and prejudice to abhorrent levels that threaten Tunisia's cohesion and stability. The result is a palpable feeling of disenchantment and political apathy that has only supercharged repression and subsequent brain drain.
Some would expect Western leaders to stand up in rejection of these developments. Yet rather than expressions of solidarity with those who continue to defend the right to human dignity and freedom, these leaders have rewarded Saied for his destructive populism. Having turned a blind eye to his coup in 2021, the United States continues to fund and support Tunisia's military and counter-terrorism forces, which are being misused to persecute critics. Meanwhile, Europe funds Tunisia's transformation into a large-scale prison for migrants, justifying human rights violations against vulnerable migrants in the name of stabilizing their political coalitions and, thus, power and ambitions.
Just as the cycle of repression repeats itself in Tunisia, Western leaders demonstrate their refusal to learn from history, repeating the same failed approaches while clinging to the myth of stability through dictatorship. Saied's failure has created a multi-layered political, economic and social crisis. He has destabilized the country by targeting not only the political elite, but judges, lawyers, business owners, journalists and civil society in what he calls his "war of liberation." Yet the risks of this so-called "liberation" are real: total destabilization of Tunisia at the expense of Tunisians and the country's neighbors.
Yet in this atmosphere of frustration and fear, rays of hope emerge from unlikely quarters. Messages of optimism and calls for unity and dialogue come from those who have been deprived of their freedom. Prisoners like Jaouhar Ben Mbarek, Nejib Chebbi, my father and others arbitrarily detained in Saied's prisons have responded to the mounting sentences against them with faith and defiance, insisting on their commitment to the cause of freedom and democracy for which they were imprisoned. They have consistently called for dialogue and unity as a way out of a crisis that is sinking the country they love day by day.
These messages stand in stark contrast to the populist discourse of hatred that sows division and seeks to distract from the failures of a creeping authoritarianism that has robbed Tunisians of both the freedoms they gained after the 2011 revolution and any dream of dignity or prosperity. Those courageously protesting in defense of freedom, despite threats and restrictions, similarly demonstrate that despite the disillusionment throughout the country, the dream of a better future has not been extinguished. Many remain ready to sacrifice for a better Tunisia and believe that their country is not destined to keep repeating the same history.
The views and positions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of DAWN.
